Rosie Makes: Passion Fruit Kisses

Passion fruit is one of my favourite Summertime fruits – its tropical taste can turn any day sunny. They’re funny things when you think about it: the unassuming, wrinkled, deep purple skin protecting beautiful, sweet golden seeds within. They’re delicious in pavlovas, tarts, cakes (this white chocolate and passion fruit cake is a firm favourite) and all manner of sweet Summer bakes. These passion fruit ‘kisses’ (from Fiona Cairns’ book, Seasonal Baking) combine sharp-but-creamy passion fruit filling sandwiched between almond-rich, buttery biscuits for a late Summer treat. It can be difficult to stop at just one as they’re very light and moreish. To make them, you will need:

For the biscuits:
220g unsalted butter, softened, in pieces
80g icing sugar, sifted
220g plain flour, sifted, plus more for dusting
100g ground almonds

For the cream:
3 passion fruits, with ripe and wrinkly skins
150g double cream
3 tbsp icing sugar, sifted, or to taste (plus more to dust).

Line two baking trays with parchment. To make the biscuits, place the butter and icing sugar in the bowl of a food mixer and cream together well.

Add the flour and ground almonds gradually, beating slowly between each addition, until the mixture binds into a soft dough.

Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes (or it will be too soft to handle). Preheat the oven to 180C/ Fan 160/ Gas 4.

Lightly flour a work top and roll the dough to 3 – 4 mm thick.

Using a heart-shaped cutter (or any other small cutter you can get your hands on!), cut out the biscuits as close as you can, re-roll and continue until you’ve used up all the dough. At this point you can freeze the biscuits if you want.

Place the biscuits on the trays (well spaced out as they spread a little)  and bake in the oven for 12 – 15 minutes. Leave on the trays for a few minutes then cool completely on a wire rack. When you’re ready to serve the biscuits, cut the passion fruits in half, scoop out the seeds and put them into a bowl. Whip the double cream until thick.

Fold in the fruit and sweeten with the icing sugar to taste.

Sandwich the biscuits together with the cream, dust with icing sugar and serve.

The hearts are best freshly baked but do keep in an airtight container for a few days – just sandwich together when ready to serve.

What are you baking this weekend? Are you a passion fruit fan too?